While you were prepping for your Labor Day BBQ two months ago, we had already entered gingerbread mode.
Our amazing, aromatic gingerbread house at French Lick Springs Hotel is a holiday tradition that needs plenty of time to bake up to perfection. It’s now on display for resort guests in the upper level of the Event Center all throughout French Lick Resort’s 50 Days of Lights. This wonder of confectionary architecture involves a couple hundred pounds of gingerbread (yes, it’s real) and 2+ months of work by our team of pastry professionals.
Everything you see on the exterior of this sweet structure is edible — from the crispy chocolate pearls on the wreath and the center of the snowflake decorations, to the sugar stained glass windows. And of course, all that gingerbread.
Ours is baked up with heaping helpings of ginger and spices, so its gingerbread scent lasts all seven weeks it’s on display. (If you’ve got a good nose, the smell carries almost to the hotel lobby right now.) The first batches of gingerbread went into the oven on Labor Day weekend, and bit by bit, this house started taking shape.
Just like winter snowflakes, every year’s gingerbread house takes on a different theme and fresh look. After last year’s icy blue winter wonderland house, pastry chef Brittany Fisher — the head gingerbread architect — opted for a classic farmhouse look with red siding and red accents galore: candy canes, huge peppermints, red ornaments and poinsettias.
“We wanted to get back to classic Christmas colors,” says Brittany, who had plenty of help from a team of five regulars plus five more part-time elves.
And moving this 8-foot-tall gingerbread monster from the resort bakery up two floors to the Event Center? “The most nervous I’ve ever been in my life,” Brittany says, and she’s probably only partially joking. But fear not — the house survived the move with nothing but a few minor cracks and crumbles. Nothing that a little icing or a few decorations can’t fix.
It gets a dusting of edible “Arctic snow” among the finishing touches. And with that, one of our favorite holiday traditions is ready for you to enjoy once again.
Your nose will lead you to it. And your eyes will feast on this sweet, sugary work of art. It’s simply not Christmas without it, and it’s the first sign the holiday season is officially upon us.
